Voyageurs National Park

Winter is a cold, snowy, and decidedly solitary season at Voyageurs National Park, where fellow visitors can be hard to spot. Take December 2017, for instance. The park recorded just 110 visitors, down from 196 a year earlier. But if you relish skimming through the woods on skis or snowmobiles, like to study tracks of what crossed the meadows and frozen ponds, or crave to see the dancing Northern Lights overhead, well, a visit to Voyageurs should be given serious consideration.

There recently was a story about the scariest, or spookiest places in the 50 states, and the one chosen for Wyoming was Old Bedlam at Fort Laramie National Historic Site. Old Bedlam, of course, was a barracks built for bachelor officers, and doesn't seem that scary. There certainly are scarier places in the Cowboy State, such as the Old Faithful Inn.

It was a calm and warm mid-September day when my friend Jeff and I put our canoe in the water at the Rainy Lake Visitor Center boat ramp. Jeff is a park ranger at Grand Canyon National Park and I was excited to show him the sites of some of the most interesting historic events that took place on Rainy Lake inside what is now Voyageurs National Park. As we paddled away from the boat ramp the North Woods were in all their splendor. A loon dove under the water no more than 50 yards away and an eagle soared overhead. The very first hint of fall color shone on a few of the scattered aspens on the lakeshore.

The U.S. Mint last week released the designs for the five new America the Beautiful Quarters for 2018, four of which feature sites in the National Park System.